“It’s not my profession to stop him,” Peter said.  “And, after all, why shouldn’t they?  If it makes them happy—­well—­” His finality conveyed his creed; if it makes them happy, what else is there?  To be happy is to have reached the goal.  Peter was a little sad about Hilary, who seemed as far as ever from that goal.  Why?  Peter wondered.  Couldn’t one be happy in this lovable water-city, which had, after all, green ways of shadow and gloom between the peeling brick walls of ancient houses, and, beyond, the broad spaces of the sea?  Couldn’t one be happy here even if the babies did poise muddy feet on a table-cloth, not, after all, otherwise clean; and even if the poor boarders wouldn’t pay their rent and the rich Jews would buy palaces and plaques?  Bother the vice of the age, thought Peter, as he crossed the sun-bathed piazza and suddenly smelt the sea.  There surely never was such a jolly world made as this, which had Venice in it for laughter and breathless wonder and delight, and her Duomo shining like a jewel.

“An’ the sun shinin’ on the gilt front an’ all,” murmured Peter.  “I call it just sweet.”

He went in (he was to meet Leslie there), and the soft dusk rippled about him, and beyond the great pillars stretched the limitless, hazy horizons of a dream.

Presently Leslie came.  He had an open “Stones of Venice” in his hand, and said, “Now for those mosaics.”  Leslie was a business-like person, who wasted no time.  So they started on the mosaics, and did them for an hour.  Leslie said, “Good.  Capital,” with the sober, painstaking, conscientious appreciation he was wont to bestow on unpurchasable excellence; and Peter said, “How jolly,” and felt glad that there were some excellences unpurchasable even by rich Jews.

They then went to the Accademia and looked at pictures.  There Leslie had a clue to merit.  “Anything on hinges, I presume,” he remarked, “is worth inspection.  Only why don’t they hinge more of the good ones?  They ought to give us a hint; they really ought.  How’s a man to be sure he’s on the right tack?”

After an hour of that they went to see the prince who had the goblet.  Half an hour’s conversation with him, and the goblet belonged to Leslie.  It was a glorious thing of deep blue glass and translucent enamel and silver, with the Berovieri signature cut on it.  Peter looked at it much as he had seen a woman in the Duomo look up at her Lady’s shrine, much as Rodney had looked on the illumined reality behind the dreaming silver world.

Peter said, “My word, suppose it broke!” It was natural that he should think of that; things so often broke.  Only that morning his gold watch had broken, in Illuminato’s active hands.  Only that afternoon his bootlace had broken, and he had had none to replace it because Caterina had been sailing his other boots in the canal.  Peter sighed over the lovely and brittle world.

Then he and Leslie visited Signor Sardi’s shop and looked at osele and sixteenth-century visiting cards.  Peter said he knew nothing about either personally, but quoted Hilary in the Gem, to Leslie’s satisfaction.